Jackson football 2-a-days: Brooklyn Columbia Central hopes a closer team is a more successful one

A gang of Columbia Central defenders tackle Hillsdale's Brandon McMullen (11) during the Hillsdale and Columbia Central football game at Columbia Central High School last season.-(JCP)

BROOKLYN, MI — As it enters the 2013 season, the Brooklyn Columbia Central High School football team believes being just that — a team — will mark the biggest difference between last year’s difficulties and this year’s success.

As last season began to slip away from them, the cords binding the Golden Eagles together began to fray. As the losses piled up in a 2-7 season, underlying tensions between them began to bubble to the surface.

“There were a lot of cliques last year kind of between the age groups, the classes,” senior receiver/linebacker Brandon Shay said. “Things started to kind of fracture apart.”

The season cratered in Week 6. That week, the Golden Eagles, a team that started the season with high expectations coming off a playoff appearance in 2011, lost to Erie-Mason, a team that had been winless and scored just 28 points in the season’s first five games.

“We were disappointed in ourselves, especially after that Erie-Mason loss,” Shay said. “We went into that thinking we were definitely going to kick their butt. We got a little ahead of ourselves.”

Brooklyn Columbia Central seniors Michael Hafner, left, Brandon Shay, center, and JD Taylor, right, hope to lead the Golden Eagles back to a winning season in 2013. (Rich McGowan)

As coach of the junior varsity team last season, Columbia Central’s first-year head coach Josh Kubiak was removed from the varsity’s internal turmoil. But soon after taking over the program in the spring, Kubiak met with the players who would become his seniors. The coach and his players immediately went to work on creating a new atmosphere.

“Talking to a lot of the juniors who were on that team who are seniors now, they felt there was a lot of ‘I’, ‘I’, ‘I’ and not so much as a team,” Kubiak said. “A lot more of personal goals than there was team goals."

That was one of the first things, when I got the job, I sat down with the seniors and no one talked personal goals. It was all about what we wanted to accomplish as a team going into this year.”

Through offseason workouts, summer 7-on-7 passing scrimmages, and the team’s three days at Highfields Day Camp in Onondaga, the Golden Eagles believe they are a much more cohesive unit than last season’s unit.

“I don’t think our team had the chemistry we do this year,” senior running back/linebacker JD Taylor said. “Our team is really clicking this year, we really work well together. Last year, maybe not so much.

“We get along more. Last year, there was some junior-senior controversy; this year, there is none of that. We’re a more solid unit this year than last year.”

While the team’s bond may be stronger, it remains to be seen if the results will be different. The Golden Eagles return only 403 yards out of the 1,402 they rushed for a season ago. Taylor returns as Columbia Central’s leading rusher with 286 yards. He’ll be joined in the backfield by first-year varsity players Zach Messerly and Dylan Gray.

They’ll be running behind a young offensive line with only one returning starter, Brandon Herzberg.

Chase Marsh and Trent Quigley are competing for the starting quarterback position.

Despite his team’s youthfulness, Kubiak likes his players’ skill and believes the Golden Eagles have enough talent to have a better showing in its second season in the Lenawee County Athletic Association.

“We feel we have the athletic skillpeople to be there. It depends on how much heart our kids show,” Kubiak said. “We feel, people here at Columbia, we’ve had a lot of kids come out to play football just to play. Now we want to get to where we’re playing football to win and be consistent all the time.”